Latin Builders question firm's Cuba ties

@PatriciaMazzei

Contractor
Odebrecht USA has invited
construction trade organizations to attend an information session Monday on a
massive new project for Miami International Airport
called Airport City. But don’t expect to see the Latin
Builders Association there.

The LBA will
skip the session because a subsidiary of Odebrecht’s Brazilian parent company
is renovating the Cuban
Port of Mariel. That
connection has put the Coral Gables-based Odebrecht USA in political hot water.
Several county commissioners have opposed giving the firm any more work.

“We must be
steadfast in our resolve for our brothers in Cuba,” LBA President Bernie
Navarro wrote in a letter. “We can’t allow Odebrecht to traffic with our
suffering. Our position is not negotiable.”

Navarro,
however, made sure to call Gilberto Neves, Odebrecht USA’s president, “a class
act.” “His actions and respect for this community are not the same as those of
his corporate parent,” he wrote.

Navarro’s
letter was distributed by Mauricio Claver-Carone, executive director of the
U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee in Washington that has vocally
complained about Odebrecht’s ties to Cuba. A handful of Miami-Dade cities have
approved legislation opposing Airport City.